I was in the mood for something a little different and I came across this series as I perused the book lists on GoodReads. It was labeled paranormal, and I’m always game for that, so I one-clicked on my Kindle and decided to give this series, and its author, a try.

Fury is the first book in a series about the New Species. They are a group of men and women that were genetically modified by an evil corporation, using various animal DNA. The main animal groups that were used in this experiment were canine, feline, and primate. Mercile Industries, used these engineered people to test various drugs that they were creating in their labs, as well as running unethical experiments and tests on them.

Ellie, the h of this book, worked for them in their secret underground laboratory, but she has a secret. She is actually an undercover operative with the mission to expose Mercile and free the men and women that are being experimented on. The book starts with her having to make a tough decision. She is carrying vital information that would expose the company, but she first has to finish her shift undetected to hand it off to the right people . To do this, she had to betray Subject 416, so not to blow her cover, and does so with a heavy heart but believes it to be for the best.

Her plan works, the company is exposed, and the government helps to rescue the subjects and grants them their own land and rights. They call their new home Homeland, a repurposed military base, and are in the process of learning how to live free and become self-governing. Ellie is hired by their leader, Justice, to be the den mother to the women and to teach them vital life skills. They are very distrusting and leery of her because she is human, but she takes that in stride. She knows first hand the horrors that they went through and tries to be patient and upbeat with her charges.

Outside, the population is divided. Some are happy that the New Species (a name that they call themselves to set them apart from regular humans) are now free and wish them the best, while others view them as abominations that should be put down. Both sides protest outside Homeland’s gates which stay swarmed with protesters, supporters, and reporters.

Ellie gets called in for a meeting one day, and there she sees 416 again for the first time since he was freed. She was happy that he was alive, but he immediately attacks her, angered still by her actions at the facility. He goes by the name Fury now, and when he is informed that she did what she had to do to free them all, and that she was actually instrumental in them being rescued, he releases her, but he still doesn’t trust her.

The story goes on, with him feeling conflicted. He wants her, but all of his life he has only known hate, pain, and distrust. He finds it hard to deal with the attraction he feels for her and also to hold onto his anger. However, when he does learn how to get past it…

I love how extremely loyal and dedicated he was to her. He was painfully honest (a trait that all of the New Species share) to the point of bluntness which caused more than a few chuckles from me as I read on. Ellie, though she was very sweet and kind, was far from a pushover, and called him out whenever he did something she didn’t like. She was an excellent balance of sweet and strong, and I found myself really enjoying her character.

With all that aside, this book has a few issues. Let’s start off with the price. $7.99. Really? It is pretty high for an e-book. I tend not to buy an e-books for anything more than $5.99 because then I wouldn’t have money left over for my wine addiction. $7.99 for less than 400 pages seemed way too much, but I bought it anyway due to its rating and need to try something different. It was pretty entertaining, don’t get me wrong, but seeing that I finished it in a couple of hours, the high price tag was not worth it.

While Ms. Dohnner has written a pretty decent story, with a interesting world and plot, there were times in the book where I felt like instead of great story telling there were info dumps and that threw off the book’s pace. When you write a book, especially one with its own cannon (like most paranormal books) try to make the information you want to give the reader (about the world and its laws) more entertaining and naturally occurring. Page after page of dry explanations is not the way to go. That is just lazy writing and not worth such a high price tag.

Will I read more of this series? I don’t quite know yet. It was a okay start to an interesting series, but I probably won’t be shelling out money for it at the moment. Got a few books waiting for me on Kindle Unlimited that are just as interesting, and guess what?